The present invention relates to freezing plants which are widely used in the foodstuff industry.
Known in the art is a rotary-type freezing plant for continuous freezing of food products in a space between the cooling plates of the rotor having a handling device.
The handling device comprises two independent assemblies.
The loading assembly is arranged outside the insulated circuit of the plant and comprises a platform accomodating a carrier which is made in the form of a frame to be filled with a product, the platform performing reciprocations for introducing the carrier with the product into the space between the cooling plates of the rotor. The unloading assembly is arranged inside the insulated circuit and comprises a cam system for moving the cooling plates apart, a mechanism for stripping the frozen product from the plate in case of the adhering thereof to the plate, and a mechanism for delivering the carrier with the frozen product outside of the insulated circuit (cf. U.S.S.R. Inventor's Certificate No. 269,940, Int. Cl. F 25 d).
The product to be frozen is manually placed into the carrier mounted on the platform. Then the platform supporting the carrier enters the space between the cooling plates of the rotor and, returning into the initial position, abandons the carrier with the product in the rotor. The product is frozen during the rotation of the rotor. Upon completion of the freezing, the cooling plates supporting the carrier with the product are stopped at the unloading station. Then the mechanism for stripping the frozen product is actuated so as to separate it from the surface of the cooling plates by shifting the product relative thereto. Then the plates are spaced apart by means of the cam system, and the carrier with the frozen product slides down under gravity to an inclined trough, wherefrom it is delivered outside the insulated circuit to a table, where the product is manually extracted from the carrier and the carrier is manually returned back for re-use.
As will be apparent from the above description of the operation of the prior art freezing plant, manual labour is employed at certain stages so that the operation of the plant is rather expensive. Furthermore, manual extraction of the product from the carrier results in a rapid wear thereof. Since there is no provision for precompaction of such products as meat, fish and the like which do not have regular shape and dimensions, the distance between the cooling plates must be oversized to accommodate the largest dimension. This results in increased overall dimensions of the freezing assembly. The arrangement of the loading assembly inside the insulated circuit results in lower reliability of its mechanisms due to abrupt temperature fluctuations.